I cried for the book’s characters, for Pond’s seemingly limitless story­telling powers and for the possibilities of the medium.

If you’re going to read only one book this year, read Pond’s 2014 graphic memoir Over Easy.

Then, somehow, you must find the time to read two books. Make the second The Customer is Always Wrong, which is the sequel to Over Easy.

This weighty tome is sort of like the graphic-novel equivalent of The Godfather, Part II. It is a rare sequel that is just as good as the original, and in fact The Customer is Always Wrong makes Over Easy a deeper work that resonates even more.

The Customer is Always Wrong picks up the slice-of-life structure from Over Easy. We find Madge, Pond’s alter ego, still working at the Imperial Cafe in Oakland, Calif., as the 1970s draw to a close. The hippie dream of the 1960s is over and the cocaine-fuelled 1980s are just dawning.

I won’t give away the plot, however there’s more street theatre.

In a sense, the ongoing story of Pond’s coming-of-age is like a soap opera, with the emphasis on opera, a point Madge’s mentor and boss, Lazlo, notes in one exchange.

Madge: It’s not the same at the restaurant without you.

Lazlo: Hah! How could it be? I made a grand opera of the place. Complete with a thousand extras, spear carriers, doomed heroes, multiple divas … And, oh yeah …the gaping maw of hell as our ­primary set.

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